Wishes
by Deberzer
Summary: Following up on an anonymous hint, Sam and Lara stumble upon the tomb of Aladdin. What will they find and who sent the message?
1. Birthday

Plot by burritorat and me

Beta'd by smithy_of_words

* * *

"I'm still in denial. Aladdin. Seriously?"

Lara just chuckled in response and continued to cram our backpacks until she craned her neck to look around the room. "Whe—"

"Still in the bag on the chair," I said without looking up from my phone.

I could feel her staring at me. She got up to check the bag, pulled out the climbing axe we'd bought the day before and stuffed it into her backpack.

"You think we'll find his magic oil lamp in the crypt?" I said

"You know very well chances are someone is pulling our legs with all this."

"Yet, we're here." I jumped up from the bed where I'd been chilling while Lara fussed over our equipment. I walked over to a window of the room we rented at the eastern edge of Kashgar.

Three days before, we'd arrived at Kashi Airport at the western end of China after a tense 26 hours flight with two stops. It was our first trip since… then.

We both had had a lot to process and come to terms with after Yamatai. We'd taken our time but after almost a year of mundane domesticity, Lara had wanted nothing more than to get out again.

"Happy birthday," I murmured, opening the window to lean out. A wave of cold air washed over me and into the heated room.

Lara's arms startled me when they wound around my mid from behind. Lost in thought, I hadn't noticed she'd stopped bustling about.

"Thank you, darling," she said. "For everything. It's the best birthday present I could've wished for."

"You think we can get a cake in the hotel restaurant?"

Lara laughed once. "I don't need one. I'm just glad we're travelling again. Together."

She tightened her hug and I leaned back into it.

"Are you still okay with all this?" she said.

"Yeah. Just a bit tense. It is nice here though, so I'm glad I'm not missing out on it even if we don't find anything."

We looked out of the window together, over the roofs of the new 'old town'. A few years before, the old town had been torn down and rebuilt. Safety reasons or something.

In the distance to the north and west, the mountains marking the border of China towered over the basin Kashi lay in. With those closeby, we'd stumbled, without looking, over shops with rock climbing equipment. Lara'd said a climbing axe could prove useful when we'd examine the crypt but I knew she just felt safer with some kind of defensive weapon.

To the east of the hotel, the last old mud-brick houses could be seen. A part that had been ignored during the renovation and left to rot. One of the protected areas. In it lay a small cemetery. Our target.

"Why always tombs and graves? Can't something be buried in a shopping mall?"

"Right," Lara chuckled.

"But, really, what if it's _the_ Aladdin? What if there's something in there?"

"We go to the museum and tell them what we found, I guess."

After we'd reported the discovery of Yamatai and the press had gotten wind of the entire thing and started bugging us, we'd eventually agreed to interviews once we'd felt up to it. Inspired by how the tale about Himiko that had been told in my family had led to the discovery of the island, we'd started to receive letters and messages from others telling legends they'd heard. Some of them had been promising, most not so much.

A few weeks before Lara's birthday, there'd been an anonymous message with nothing but a string of numbers. Coordinates. It had started out as a joke to go see what was on that cemetery they pointed to but, fueled by restlessness, Lara had gotten obsessed with the idea to go through with it.

"But what if there's… more to it?" I said.

We still didn't know what had happened at the top of the mountain on Yamatai. I'd blacked out the moment the ritual started and Lara… It sounded so crazy even to her what she'd seen or had thought she'd seen. She wasn't sure whether it had actually happened or just been a product of her delirium. It still nagged her.

"I don't know," Lara said low, sounding like the question exhausted her.

"What would you wish if there's a genie? Disney rules." I knew the answer had reviving the dead been an option.

Lara sighed at length. "Knowledge, I guess. You?"

"A unicorn." I knew Lara was rolling her eyes at that behind me.

Shaking her head, she unwound her arms from me and went to grab our stuff. "We should get going."

"What? You had ponies and horses as a kid. I never had one. I want a rainbow farting unicorn."

"That's so..." Smirking, she handed me my backpack.

"Gay," I finished the sentence for her. "Damn right it is. So are you." I slapped her butt and went to the door to hold it open for Lara. "Ladies first."

"I was going to say 'you', but I guess 'gay' works, too. Aren't we both ladies though?" She raised an eyebrow at me.

"Now that you mention it," I said and stepped into the door frame with her. Giggling, we struggled to squeeze through at the same time.

"Goofus," Lara said grinning once we managed to get into the hallway.

"You know you love it."

"I love you," she said, catching me off-guard with the smoothness.

"Love you, too, sweetie."

We shared a quick kiss and left for the elevator.


	2. Travel

Foreign places, unknown people, unfamiliar architecture. Things I'd used to love, had used to get excited about.

Instead, I felt uneasy.

I scrutinized every person in sight, close or not. Those who looked back at me, I stared at far too long. They probably wondered what was wrong with me.

Lara took my hand, pulling me out of my claustrophobic headspace. She smiled at me and stroked my hand with her thumb. It was enough for me to relax a bit as she led us down the street towards the abandoned part of Old Town.

The day after our arrival in Kashi, we'd gone to the coordinates to take a look at the cemetery, but neither of us could read any of the Uyghur engravings, old nor new. I'd paid someone from the university to read them for us, saying it was for some research about the history of Kashi for a London university. We hadn't known ourselves what we'd been looking for.

When he'd read the name Aladdin to us on a crypt-like structure, Lara had thrown her elbow into my side to shut my squeal up. Apparently, our translator didn't find the name Aladdin the least bit remarkable as he'd skipped right to the next grave to get done with it.

"Wasn't Aladdin Arabic or something?" I wondered out loud. "Why would he be buried here if it's actually him?"

The closer we got to the abandoned part of Old Town, the more comforting was the chance that everything was just a coincidence. It wasn't _the_ Aladdin. Someone knew of the crypt, found it funny, sent us the coordinates, and laughed at the idea of us making a fuss over it. Nothing to it.

"In some way it does make sense," Lara said. "Several elements of the story do come together here in Kashi. In the book of One Thousand and One Nights, it's said Aladdin was chinese and this city is at least 4000 years old. In the 10th century, Kashgar was captured by Turkic sultan, uhm, sultan something something." She cleared her throat. "Anyway, the Arabian Nights are just folk tales."

"So was mine about Himiko."

Lara gave my hand a light squeeze.

We left the rebuilt area, crossed a wide street, and walked down a pathway leading up to the clutter of two-storied, beige mud-brick buildings. Lara took out her phone to guide us through.

"Did you know that in the Han period," she began to break the silence but I was only half listening to her. Unstrung again, I was observing people around us once more.

During the flight to Kashi, I'd already been on edge, feeling like someone had been watching us. Several times when I'd looked around in the cabin, a man on the other side had looked back at me. Lara had reasoned he'd been doing that because I'd stared at him. Which had made sense but hadn't helped to ease my anxiety.

On our way to the cemetery, most of the people we'd passed seemed to be locals minding their own business. A few tourists here and there that looked lost in the labyrinth of narrow alleys without any structure.

One man who was clearly not a local caught my attention though. Something about him seemed familiar. He leant against a building, looking at his phone without paying us any attention in return.

"Sam," Lara almost shouted to get my attention.

"Hm?" I said without taking my eyes off him.

"Are you listening to me?"

"Yeah, yeah. I think we're being followed." The words left my mouth before I could stop them.

Rationally, it was ridiculous. Had he been the man from the plane, at least I would have had a reason to be paranoid. When I glanced at Lara because she didn't say anything to that, she looked at me worried, her mouth pressed into a thin line.

"Look, I know I'm probably just paranoid, okay? But..." I had no idea how to finish that sentence.

"Okay," she said. "Who?"

Caught off-guard that she didn't try to argue, it took me a moment to reply. I wanted to nod in the direction where the man stood, but he was gone. I thought I caught a glimpse of him as he vanished in an alley next to the house he'd leant against.

"He's gone," I said, pointing at where he'd disappeared to.

Without hesitation, Lara tightened her grip on my hand and pulled me forward and into the alley. She reflexively reached for the side of her hip where a gun holster would be. "What makes you think he's following us?"

"I don't know," I said abashed. "I might have seen him before." I pulled a face at how paranoid I sounded.

We went up and down the alley and any side alleys, catching a bunch of odd looks from people we stumbled across, but we didn't find the man I'd seen.

Lara gave me a quizzical look.

"Nothing," I said, ashamed but also relieved that we'd searched for him and that we hadn't found anything. "Sorry about that."

"Don't worry, darling."

"Let's just go to the cemetery."

Lara gave me a reassuring smile, took out her phone to orient ourselves, and guided us onwards, throwing as many looks back at the alley as me.


	3. Domestic Life

I threw another wary look back as we left the narrow alleys and tight spaces between the old houses behind. We stepped onto a small path leading to the clearance where the small cemetery lay.

To break the awkward silence since the incident, I stretched my arms and said with relief, "At last, the sun."

Lara smirked absent-mindedly. Her eyes were already fixed on our destination.

The cemetery was mostly unremarkable. Rows of gravestones, slim and tall with detailings. Not the bulky kind I was used to. Every so often, a stone frame marked one of the graves. One lonely, small stone crypt stood at the end of the path going through the middle of the cemetery.

Lara's steps became quicker the closer we got. When we reached the long shadow the small building cast in the low morning sun, she left my side and went ahead.

When she was about to enter the open doorway beneath Aladdin's name hewn into the triangular gable, I called out with my camera at the ready, "Hey, say Aah."

"Isn't it 'say cheese'?" She turned around, pulling a puzzled face.

The camera clicked. "Perfect," I chuckled to myself.

Lara groaned, turned on her heels, and vanished inside.

I took a few thorough looks around before following her. A few people passed the cemetery's entrance but no one seemed to take notice of us or watch us.

The small, shady interior was plain. In the middle was a chest-high stone sarcophagus with inscriptions on the lid Lara was staring at. In the back wall was an altar with an empty vase.

"Lemme guess. We're gonna open that," I said after taking pictures of everything.

"Well, I don't see anything else noteworthy in here." Lara circled around the sarcophagus, inspecting and scanning it from all sides.

"You can hardly see anything in here anyway."

With the sun behind the crypt, hardly any light found its way inside. I took a flashlight out of my backpack and handed it to Lara when she passed me. She made another lap with it but didn't find anything.

"Well," she said and laid the flashlight on the lid of the sarcophagus.

Sighing, I joined her side. I imagined a bare skeleton in rotten tatters, baring its teeth and staring at me with empty eye sockets. It gave me the creeps.

"Please, be empty. Please, be empty," I murmured as we pushed against the heavy lid. Lara glanced at me sideways but didn't comment on it.

Inch by inch, the stone plate noisily ground over stone, accompanied by our grunts from the effort. Once a big enough gap offered a good view into the pitch-dark internal space, Lara picked up the flashlight and shone inside.

I took a reluctant peek.

Nothing.

A breath of relief from me, one of disappointment from Lara.

She glowered at me. "This is your fault."

"What?" I said, bewildered.

"You always get your way! Why did you want there to be nothing?"

It was my turn to groan and shove her shoulder. Lara flashed a smirk before putting her head through the gap into the sarcophagus.

"Human remains aren't my kink. Sorry," I said. "Nothing in there?"

"No." Her voice sounded strange from inside.

"What now?" I hoped she'd say we'd pack things up, go back to the hotel and enjoy the rest of our vacation.

"There has to be something," Lara muttered, refusing to come back out.

"Weren't you the one saying it's probably just a prank?" I said, but instead of answering she squeezed more of herself into the sarcophagus. I leaned back against the wall and watched Lara's butt wiggling around as she examined the interior.

After a while, she froze and called out, "Sam? Are you still there?"

"Yeah, yeah." Bored, I bumped my foot against the side of the sarcophagus and joked, " Maybe it has a double bottom."

"Sam!"

"Are you stuck?"

"Kick it again!"

I didn't even bother asking why and did as I was told.

"Lower," she said.

Aiming at the area right above the ground, I let the stone feel my boot again. It was somewhat cathartic.

"Harder."

"Are we still talking about kicking caskets? You're turning me kinda on." I grinned, which Lara couldn't see.

"Sam!"

"Okay, okay." With the next strong kick, I could feel something give in.

"The bottom moved." She frantically struggled to get out again. Her head was red as a beet. She dropped to her knees to inspect the outside of the sarcophagus again. There was a break in the stone near the bottom of the sarcophagus' exterior we hadn't noticed before. Lara sat down and patted the floor next to her. "Help me."

"Great," I sighed and dragged a foot through the dust on the ground.

"Come on. At least your looks will match your dirty mind."

I narrowed my eyes at her and let out a sarcastic laugh that made Lara chuckle. I'd never set down that slowly before.

With our backs against the wall of the crypt, we pushed with our feet against the heavy bottom plate. While the side we pushed against vanished with our legs inside the sarcophagus, it scraped noisily over the ground on the other side where it got thrust out.

Lara jumped to her feet with the flashlight in her hand.

After brushing the dust off my clothes, I joined her to peek into the gap she'd poked her head in before. Lara gasped.

With the bottom of the sarcophagus gone, a set of stone stairs leading into a black abyss below had been revealed.

Lara smiled at me with eyes wide open. While I had been cautious about the entire trip, my own excitement was getting rekindled. While I stared back down into the dark, wondering what secrets it harbored, Lara tried to push the lid further out of the way.

"You think whoever sent us the coordinates knows about this?" I said and helped her. I counted down from three and together we opened the sarcophagus far enough for us to climb into.

"Probably." Lara dug up her own flashlight from her rucksack and handed it to me.

"But what does that mean?"

"I don't know," she said casually.

"Don't you have a weird feeling about this?" I was confused she didn't seem to worry at all.

"I do," she began and looked like she wanted to say more but couldn't find the words.

"But, right now, all you wanna do is go down there," I said for her.

Lara nodded.

"Of course." I sighed.

"But…" She gave me a worried look and then stared at the steps leading into the dark. Groaning with frustration, she ran a hand through her hair.

Her internal crisis was easy to read. Asking me to stay put meant she couldn't keep an eye on me. Taking me with her meant putting me into potential danger. Ever since Yamatai, she'd been overprotective towards me—unhealthily so. She'd worked on it, but being in a foreign city away from home was so far from being a situation she could control.

"I'm coming with you," I made the decision for her. I wasn't going to stay back alone to keep watch. "We'll see this through together, alright?"

"Thank you, darling." With a small smile, she gave me a quick kiss before sitting down on the edge of the sarcophagus. "Ladies first," she said and climbed in.

Shining down the stairs with the flashlight, I watched her descend several steps. It looked safe enough.

Before following though, I couldn't help going back to the entrance of the crypt and peek out to take another look around. Again, nothing seemed out of the ordinary. Wishing I could shake the weird feeling, I went back inside and after Lara.


	4. Nightmares part 1

My coat scraped along the walls of the narrow staircase. The stone steps scrunched under my soles. Dust fell from the low ceiling. The deeper I went, the stuffier the air.

To say I felt uneasy would be an understatement. I couldn't even turn around without risking slipping and falling down the rest of the way.

"Lara?" I shouted into the dark, unable to see her flashlight or the end of the staircase.

"It's safe," came from down below.

"So much for sunlight," I murmured and carefully continued the descent. Lara waited for me at the bottom and helped me down the last few steps that had crumbled. I panned the light around the room we stood in to get my bearings.

It was plain like the crypt above ground; smooth stone walls, tiled floor and ceiling. To the left and right, were alcoves with painted bowls.

"Probably used to be light sources," Lara commented. "They're empty."

She then pointed her light over to the far side of the room. There were the outlines of a door and next to it a recess in the wall, small but about an arm-length deep. It was full of long metal spikes protruding out of its sides and sheltering a lever in the back.

"What the fuck," I said.

"Some kind of trap someone triggered, maybe?"

"Where there's one trap..." I said and shone my light into her face, making her shield herself from it with a hand.

"I know, I know. Let's just take a careful look around, okay? I haven't seen anything else suspicious so far." She took the climbing ax out of her backpack anyway.

Though, even on second glance—where I took photos of everything, there didn't seem to be more to the room. We tested the stone door but it didn't budge, even with both of us pushing against it.

It was only when I turned around from the door that I noticed two tiles in the floor that differed from the rest. We'd walked right past them in the dark. I bumped my elbow into Lara's side. "Maybe some kind of mechanism to open the door?" I wondered out loud.

"Careful." Lara held me back and approached one of them.

Before she could do something rash, like stepping onto it, I threw my backpack onto the tile. Lara jumped back, startled, with the ax at the ready.

Nothing happened.

"Can you please not..." she said, breathless.

"That was safer than whatever you wanted to do." I shrugged. "Anyway, maybe both need to be pressed." I shone my light on the other one.

Lara gave me side-eyes in the dark before following suit and putting her bag on the second tile. She backed away, but again nothing happened.

"I'm going to step on it," she said. "Be ready for anything."

My gut feeling was to stop her, but what else was there to try besides the lever in the wall and losing an arm in the process? I wiped my sweaty hands on my pants as Lara slowly put a foot on the tile. She tested it, shifting her weight back and forth, before stepping on it. The floor made a short, grating sound. We frantically panned our lights around the room, but it was quiet again.

"So far, so good," she said and turned to me. "The tile sank a bit when I stepped on it. Try the other one? But, please—"

"I'm careful." I picked up my backpack from the floor and put my feet one after another there instead. The moment I stood with my full body weight on the tile, the room came to life with clockwork-like noise in the walls.

Most of the metal spikes blocking the lever in the recess retracted into the wall. With loud rattling and a cloud of dust, the stone door opened by sinking into the ground. After a few inches, it made a deafening clunk and slipped half the way down where it got stuck.

Lara called out my name as a light source was ignited beyond the door and a shimmer could be seen. The dust settled, unveiling a pillar-like pedestal in the middle of the next room. On it stood a golden, richly ornamented oil lamp. Marveling at it, I lifted my camera and took a photo of it.

"Sam!"

"Is that…" I pointed at the lamp. Having a hard time tearing my eyes away from it, I slowly turned to Lara and froze.

A circle of metal bars around her tile had trapped her in place while spear-like rods lowered out of holes in the ceiling above her. Using the little space she had, she squeezed the ax between two bars to pry them apart.

I rushed to help her. Putting all my strength into it, I pushed against the metal with her, but it hardly moved.

A cracking came from above. One of the spears had stopped moving and wiggled around. It cracked again.

"Watch out!" I pushed Lara back.

Her ax fell to the ground, followed by the spear that had come loose. It landed between her feet.

"Shit!" she said, staring at it wide-eyed. She pulled it out and threw out of the cage. As it clattered over the ground, I picked the ax back up and handed it over to her to put it between the bars again. It wasn't working. The other rods were only a few inches above her head now. Lara shoved my shoulder and pointed behind me. "The lever!"

Turning around, I glanced at the lamp. For a second, I wondered whether I was supposed to call a jinn and wish her out.

I jumped towards the recess instead. The image of the myriad of spikes that had filled it flashed before my eyes. Two of them still poked out, one more than the other, as if the mechanism was broken. I imagined the rest shooting out and ripping my arm apart as I reach inside. I broke out in a cold sweat.

"Help me!" Lara screamed behind me. The mechanism kept clicking, lowering doom onto her.

"Oh, God, oh, God!" I put my arm into the recess. It was my right arm. "I like that arm!" I screeched and pulled it out again. Using the left one instead, I reached in and grabbed the lever. I couldn't look. With a loud, "Fuck!" I pulled.

The room fell silent except for a quiet clicking. My hand snapped back out of the recess, scratching one of the two stray spikes. Overall, the arm was still in one piece. The remaining spikes hadn't come back out. While letting out a breath of relief, I checked on Lara.

She had hunkered down, staring up at a pointy rod right above her head. They'd stopped moving.

The rattling in the walls got louder again. Lara flinched.

Whimpering, I dashed back to her and grabbed two of the bars as if I could pull them apart like that. But instead of having to watch her getting impaled, both the bars and the spears retreated back into the ceiling.

Lara rolled out from under them. The old mechanism above made a hideous sound and another spear came loose. It landed right where she'd been. I stared at it wide-eyed; she collapsed with a groan.

Shaken, I sat down next to her when the trap was gone and sought out one of her hands for comfort. My heartbeat hammered in my ear. "Geez," was all I could say.

"Thanks for getting me out of there," Lara said and propped herself up on elbows to look at me.

I raised my eyebrows at her. "I saved your life. Are we even now?"

"Not even close, love," she chuckled and touched the tip of my nose with a dusty finger.

I managed to hold a smirk for all of a second before my face fell. "You almost died."

"But I didn't. I'm fine. You did well. We did well." She sat up and stroked my hand she held until she noticed the graze on it. "You're injured!"

I'd completely forgotten about it. Now that it had my attention and I saw all the blood… I made a dismissive hand wave. "This is nothing. I don't even feel it."

Lara looked at me amused.

"Okay, okay," I said. "It hurts like hell. Do something!"

She fumbled around with her backpack to withdraw some supplies and began with dabbing off the blood with a tissue. "I'm sorry. I didn't want you to get hurt."

I shrugged. It wasn't like we didn't know something like that could happen when we'd gone down those stairs. What I was more worried about was, "What are the chances there are more death traps like that? What did we stumble into?"

"I don't know. But whatever it is, it's worth protecting. Did you see what's behind the door?" She had that spark in her eyes again, which meant any potential worries about almost dying were gone. She got out a band-aid to put over my wound and smiled at it. Thinking I'd be the one having to patch her up, I'd bought band-aids for kids. At least I had cute penguins on my hand now.

"There better be a damn jinn in that thing," I said and stood up, holding out a helping hand. She could have jumped to her feet within half a second but accepted it anyway. On the way to the stuck door, she picked her light and ax she'd dropped on the trap back up, giving the ceiling a wary look.

We climbed into the next room and cautiously approached the oil lamp. It looked as beautiful as on the first glance. The golden shimmer was captivating. The room itself looked like the previous one, except for the pedestal in the middle and a fire burning in the bowls in the alcoves. An open passage in the far wall led into more darkness. After checking the ceiling, we took a closer look at the lamp.

"This is kinda fishy," I said after taking photos of it. "Isn't it weird that it's on show like that?"

"Maybe." She hovered over it anyway. "Look at the detailing. Marvelous."

"Please don't touch it." I glanced back the way we'd come from. "Isn't it also weird only one of us was caged in? Like…"

"A test," she finished the sentence for me without taking her eyes off the lamp. She freed a hand by tugging her ax between her legs. "But what if this isn't one?"

"Don't touch it!"

"But—"

"Lara!"

She pressed her mouth into a thin line without backing away.

"Why is there another doorway if this is it?" I said, pointing my flashlight into the dark corridor ahead.

"I don't know," she grumbled.

"What's up?" I shone my light at her, wondering why she was so obsessed with the lamp. It looked valuable but I wasn't eager to set off another trap. One we might not escape from that time.

She swatted the light away. "You were the one talking non-stop about jinns since we found the crypt."

"I thought you don't believe in such stuff?"

"I don't," she said in a frustrated tone. Her face scrunched up. "But…"

"But if it's real then—"

"Whatever I saw on Yamatai might have been real, too, and I'm not crazy." Lara deflated, running a hand through her hair.

I considered her for a moment. I wanted it to be the real magic lamp as much as her but the whole setup of the room smelled too much of trap. The lamp seemed to be a diversion. "I have a really bad feeling about this. We can still come back and take another look at it if that passage leads nowhere." If we're still alive by then, I thought.

"Fine." She exhaled at length and took a step back from the pedestal.

"You're not crazy," I told her, joining her side to put a reassuring arm around her.

"Tell that my shrink." She laughed darkly.

Before going through the next doorway, we took one last look at the golden lamp. "If this is a test," I said, "it's a pretty effective one."

"You could say that," she chuckled.

Lara went first into the passage. It was too narrow for us to walk side by side and just high enough for us to stay upright. As we advanced into the darkness, I watched the falling dust dance in the cone of my light. I had a queasy feeling in my stomach. After the trap in the first room had already fallen half apart, I wondered how likely a cave-in of those ancient underground passages was.

"Hello?" I shouted into the dark ahead. "Anyone there? We come in peace."

Lara chuckled. I'd hoped she'd say something to distract me, but she wordlessly kept on making her way forward. Fortunately, it didn't take long before we reached the next small room, giving me something else to concentrate on.

Sparsely lit up by nothing but our flashlights, the first thing we noticed were three other exits, one per wall, each crested differently. The adornments around the one to our left were opulent and gold-plated, glinting in our lights. The frame on the far wall depicted skulls and skeletons piling up around the opening. When I saw the third doorway, a shiver ran down my spine. Grotesque faces on contorted bodies wound around the black entrance. Their devilish grins stared at us with monstrous eyes, as if ready to jump and sink their fangs into us. It looked like a gate to hell.

"Very inviting," I said and swallowed hard. As Lara panned her light across all three doorways again, I joked, "If you're wondering which one to take, the one behind us seems like a good idea. This is creeping me out."

She laughed once, unfazed. With her light pointed at the ground, she took a step forward to inspect a relief in the middle of the floor. It depicted a man with a stretched out arm and something shiny in his open hand. A sword was sticking in his chest and one of those grotesque figures sneaked up from below, grabbing his leg.

"What do you make of this?" I said and raised my camera.

"Not sure yet."

When the flash of my camera lit up the surroundings, we noticed more details in the room. Hewn into the stone above each opening, were words we couldn't read. On the far wall was more writing below a relief of a pair of scales. One side of them was weighed down by what looked to be the same shiny something the man on the floor held.

"So," I said, "how sure are we this is actually Aladdin's tomb?" I eyed the creepy demons again.

"Does it matter? There has to be something down here and we might be the first to find it." She moved through the room, inspecting everything up close, until she came to a halt near the skeleton-gateway. "Or not," she added. A trace of dried blood led out of the opening and ended in a small pool near the wall.

"Maybe it's from whoever sent us the message," I said.

"I just had the same thought. Also…" She followed the red trail with her light back into the passage. It made a bent after a few meters and looked unremarkable except for the blood.

"I guess we can rule out this exit," I said.

"Indeed."

"Must have been a nasty wound." I glanced at the other passages, worrying about the dangers lurking in the dark. "If this is the blood of whoever sent us the coordinates and they backed out after running into a trap, why haven't they contacted… I don't know… archeologists from around here?"

"I don't know," she said absentmindedly while taking another look at the relief on the floor.

I began to wonder whether there was a reason why she didn't think about the circumstances of why we were there, or was she just too absorbed by the place?

Lara turned towards the gold-framed doorway. "I'm going to try this one."

"Wait. Why? Doesn't this look like a trap like the one with the lamp?"

"We don't know if that was one," she pointed out. It was true. I still didn't trust the shimmering gold. Lara aimed her light at the scales above the writing on the wall. "It looks like something needs to be offered in exchange for whatever might be hidden here. Maybe through that doorway," she nodded towards the one with the skeletons, "you are supposed to sacrifice a life."

"Guess whoever's been here before," I said, "found out the hard way and figured they don't get anything out of it afterward when they're dead."

"I'm not sure what this is about," Lara raised an eyebrow towards the hell gate before turning towards the golden one. "But what if this one isn't a trap? It could actually lead to some treasury," she said with way too much desire in her voice. "That or one has to offer riches to pass," she added.

"Do you have any riches ready? You think this place accepts credit cards?"

"Do you have a golden one?" she shot back. "What if we were supposed to take the golden lamp and place it somewhere in there?"

"Let's just hope we don't have to sacrifice something in each one of them," I said.

Lara gave me a thoughtful look and panned her light across the room. She sighed with frustration. "I wish I could read the text."

"We can leave and go get that translator guy again," I suggested which earned me another bemused side-eye from her. It had only been half a joke though. The thought of us not being alone down there in the dark between traps was tempting. "What do you make of the relief on the floor? Doesn't the thing on his leg look like the ones around the creepy doorway?"

"I guess."

"Maybe it means that's the right one and it leads to something evil that's hidden there," I said.

"Something evil?" She gave me a wary look.

"Not literally. Maybe it caused some disaster. Like, if it's actually Aladdin's lamp, someone wished for something shitty and it was decided it's better to hide the lamp. I don't know!" I threw my arms up. "I just don't trust your bling-bling doorway. I think we should take the other one—even if it gives me the creeps. But maybe that's the point. Deterrence."

Lara's wary look didn't waver.

"You're still going to enter the golden one, aren't you?" I said.

"Yup. I'm sorry."

"You're not." I narrowed my eyes at her.

She just smirked and stepped up to the doorway. When I followed her, she spun around and held me back. "Please, wait here," she said with sudden deadly seriousness.

"I'm not going to wait around here alone while you run into who knows what."

"What good does it do for us if we both run into a trap? I'll go in alone and if something happens, you can help me. Okay?"

I knew she just wanted me to stay out of danger. I hated to let her go alone but, unfortunately, she had a point. It was frustrating. "Fine," I grunted. "Just don't run into any swords like the guy on the relief."

"I'll be careful."

"Sure," I murmured.

"If I do run into a trap where I need the lamp to get out, be ready to run and get it." She stroked my cheek with a faint smile and stepped through the golden entrance.

Inspecting all sides and with the climbing ax raised, she made her way through the narrow passage. I helped to illuminate it with my light until she reached a corner a few meters in. She threw a short look back at me and vanished around it.

Not being able to see her anymore in the dark was so unsettling, my heart thumped in my throat. The only thing holding me back from going after her was that I could still hear her steps. "You okay?" I said to calm my nerves.

"Yeah. Nothing so fa—" A loud crash and pained grunt sounded through the corridor. The same mechanical clacking began. Creaking. "Shit!" A dull thud.

"Lara!" I bolted into the passageway.


	5. Nightmares part 2

"Stay back! I'm okay! Stay where you are!" Her voice was muffled.

"My ass," I snarled and ran after her.

Sliding across the tiled floor, I crashed into the wall at the end of the straight corridor and stopped dead in my tracks. Spears stuck out of the inner wall around the corner, one of them pinning Lara's rucksack against the opposite side. Her light lay on the ground past the trap, shining on the dead end of the passage. She was nowhere to be seen. Shouting her name, I frantically tried to find a way past the trap.

"Stay back. I told you to…" The rest was groaning and clattering. It came from below.

It was only then that I noticed the floor below the trap was missing. I ducked under the spears to look into the pit. It was about three meters deep. Lara scrambled around on a pile of scattered bones, trying to get a foothold. All the while, the clacking in the walls continued.

"Are you okay?" I said, worried about the deep drop into the pit she'd taken.

"We're definitely not the first to be here." She pointed at the bones around her and then slipped, falling back down into the pile. Another pained grunt.

Creaking above me made me look up. The spears withdrew back into the wall. "I think the trap is resetting," I told Lara.

"Help me out of here," she said with sudden panic.

I reached out into the pit as far as possible. She stumbled around, trying to regain her balance, and then jumped, throwing her arms up using the ax as an extension. I grabbed the head of the ax and yelped. My arms almost dislocated from the sudden weight on them. I could hardly breathe.

As the toothed underside of the pick painfully dug into my fingers while Lara hung from the haft, I tried to pull her up, but I wasn't as strong as her. I could only try to hold onto the ax. "Do something," I grunted.

She took a deep breath. Crying out, she pulled herself up to grab and hold onto my arm and again to reach the floor.

The spears were gone by now and released Lara's rucksack. It fell down and crashed into the bone pile. While the clacking in the walls continued, the missing floor noisily reappeared out of the wall.

I scrambled to my feet and helped her climb out. The moment she was in safety, the tiles snapped into place, completing the floor and sealing the pit as if nothing had happened. The surroundings fell silent.

She, on the other hand, didn't look that way. On one of her sides, parts of the sleeve and her pants were ripped and soaked in blood. There was also a gash on her forehead.

"Geez," I winced, already fetching my first aid kit. "What happened?"

"I noticed the trap in time to duck under it. Well, almost in time," she said and checked on her arm with scratched up hands. "One of those spears caught my rucksack. When I took it off, the bloody floor opened up."

"This place sucks," I grunted while patching her up in spare light. "Why didn't you want me to come after you fell down?"

"I was afraid the trap would get you, too."

"And how did you want to get out of the pit by yourself?"

"I… was working on that."

"Sure," I said drawn out, cleaning and binding up the wound on her leg. "Are we _now_ even?"

Lara rolled her eyes. "What about the fact that by going in alone I saved you from running into the trap?"

"I wanted to take the creepy doorway," I pointed out and put a band-aid with ducks on her forehead.

"Speaking of," she said and tested her arm. Gritting her teeth, she moved it around a bit before putting her shirt and coat back in place.

"You really wanna keep going after this?" I wasn't actually surprised.

"There's only one way left. This is clearly a dead end." She nodded at the illuminated wall past the trap and sighed. "I wish I could get at least my torch back."

"I'm not getting you out of that pit a second time," I said, drawing an unbelieving but amused look from her. "Seriously though," I tried again as I stowed the first aid kit away, "what if the other passage leads to another trap and we're not that lucky again?"

Lara considered me for a moment. "Let's take a quick look. If it looks like a trap, we'll leave and come back more prepared, okay?"

"Fine." I had to take what I could get. When we were ready to stand up, she tried to pick up my light, but I snatched it away. "Mine."

"Sam…" She looked at me as if I was doing something foolish. I didn't budge. "It's the only one we have," she said. "Please, give it to me."

"You had your shot, now it's my turn." I wondered whether she'd still be ready to be so reckless if I was the one leading the way. The scowl on her face stood in stark contrast to the ducks on her forehead. I had to snicker.

"This is not the time to fool around. Give me the torch."

"I'm serious. You're injured. You take it easy and be my backup." When I stood up, she jumped to her feet, about to go ahead anyway, even without a light. I managed to get in her way. "Dude. Either I go first or home. With the light."

We frowned at each other until she gave in. "Fine," she hissed and reluctantly gave me her ax. "Just… be careful."

We made our way back to the room with the 4 exits. With nothing but one flashlight to fight back the darkness, the shadows and black corners looked more sinister than before. The thought someone could have followed us and lurked in the dark shot through my mind. Clutching the light with my clammy hand, I aimed it at the entrance we'd originally come from but it was empty.

"Are you okay?" Lara said from behind.

"You should leave a blood trail, too, so the next person to stumble in here knows not to go this way, either," I joked to lighten my mood.

"Right," was the only response I got. It still made me smirk.

Going on, the closer we got to the opening on the other side, the more creeped out I became. Those devilish creatures with their menacing grins looked like they'd lunge at me the moment I step through the entrance they guarded. I slowed down again.

"Do you want me to go first?" Lara piped up.

"Dude," I groaned, took a deep breath, and entered the passage.

It was as narrow and low as the others. I inspected the walls and tested every floor tile before shifting my weight onto them. A short way in, it turned into another staircase, leading further down.

As we descended slowly, I couldn't help feeling like something was strange. The light seemed fainter even though there was no way the batteries gave up already. The air was cold yet muggy. The stone walls lost their color. My gut feeling was to turn around and leave, but Lara would have used that as a reason to take the flashlight and lead. Grudgingly, I kept going down the stairs.

At the bottom was another room. Lara stepped out of the corridor behind me to join my side. Unlike the previous rooms, this one was a hexagon, with writing all over the walls and no other exit. In the middle was another sarcophagus, similar to the one we'd climbed into. Hewn into the floor around it was a hexagram inside a circle with strange symbols between its points.

"Huh," Lara said and wanted to take a step forward, but I held her back.

"Wait here while I check the perimeter." I built myself up.

She rolled her eyes. Making an annoyed sound, she put her hands into her pockets and stayed back while I searched the room for anything suspicious.

"Did you see the markings on the ground?" she said after a while and continued without waiting for an answer, "It's a Seal of Solomon. It's usually in the form of a talisman of sorts, made from brass and iron. Supposedly, King Solomon used it to command demons and jinns and talk to animals."

I had a hard time concentrating on what she said. While I hadn't found anything out of place so far, the uneasy feeling made my hair stand on end the further I went into the room. I had gotten a headache.

"Oh? Would you let me get a cat if you could talk to it?" I joked to distract myself.

"Maybe you could use it to talk to your inner sloth," she fired back.

"Hey," I said mock-offended. "Commanding jinns though, you say? Can't be a coincidence. What do you think did Solomon have to do with Aladdin?"

I couldn't help getting a little excited. What if we had actually stumbled upon something mystical or at least some antique, superstitious ritual? I would have explained why my sixth sense was tingling.

"I'm not sure," Lara said. "But I could find out if I was allowed to take a closer look at everything."

I didn't let her irritated tone deter me. Not wanting to run into another trap, I finished my round to the sound of her tapping foot. "Looks safe enough. But be careful," I told her when I was done and handed her the flashlight for the moment.

"Yes, ma'am." She went straight for the sarcophagus.

Meanwhile, I took out my camera, letting the ax hang off my wrist by the attached loop. When I finished photographing everything and joined her side, she pointed at a word engraved into the lid. It was the same as the one written over the entrance to the crypt above ground—"Aladdin". We gave each other a knowing look.

"So, what do you make of this?" I asked.

"I'm not sure. It seems to be the tomb of at least some person whose name was Aladdin. But I don't see any indication what the purpose of the seal is. I really wish I could read the writing." She pulled a face before continuing, "As far as I can tell, this entire crypt is authentic. Maybe a thousand years old, I'd say. The wealth of information the text could hold…"

"I documented everything. We can show the photos to someone and get it translated when we get out of here."

If we make it out of there, I had the fleeting thought. If it was an invaluable archeological site so close to Kashi, I still wondered why it didn't seem to be publicly known, especially because we weren't the only ones aware of it.

"What now?" I asked but the answer was obvious the way she stared at and touched the sarcophagus. "You wanna open that, I guess?"

"Well, of course. Hidden underground passageways full of traps leading to this?"

Even though it felt like we were about to desecrate that place, I was curious myself. As we pushed against the lid together, Lara let out a groan through gritted teeth. Blood had soaked through the bandage on her arm. I made another mental note to drag her to the nearest hospital the moment we'd get back to civilization.

When the sarcophagus opened up a bit, a wave of musty air shot into our faces. Coughing, we backed away.

"I hope that wasn't a trap that just poisoned us," I said when we'd caught our breaths.

"Do you feel poisoned?"

"Not yet, I guess."

"Me neither. Come, help me," she said and went back to work. Sighing, I joined her and we moved the lid out of the way.

"Please, let there be a magic lamp," I said as Lara readied the light and shone into the sarcophagus.

My prayer was in vain. There was only a dusty skeleton in rotten tatters. The only remarkable thing was a ring with a shiny gem on one of the boney fingers. Lara took a quick look around inside before reaching for the ring.

"What are you doing?" I asked.

"I… want to take a look at that ring."

"You want to take it." It was more an assessment than a question.

"Well, uhm, yes." She shrugged and picked up the skeleton's finger that came loose the moment she touched it.

"Great. Now we're grave robbers." I threw my arms up.

She made a dismissive sound and removed the ring from the bone. She blew on it, making a cloud of dust rise into the air, and studied it in her open hand. It was made of some kind of metal with similar strange signs engraved. The gem was opaque blue. I took a picture of it.

Lara finished her study with a short, "Hm," and put the ring into a pocket.

"And she's keeping it," I said theatrically into the room.

"I want to examine it more thoroughly in a better environment," she said casually and took another look at the skeleton.

"Sure," I said long-drawn-out and then hissed into her ear, "My precious."

Lara threw me some side-eyes before turning her attention back to the bones. "We have to be missing something," she said. "All those defensive measures for... this?"

"Maybe this place was already looted?"

"Maybe," she repeated without sounding convinced. "The sarcophagus didn't look ransacked."

"What about that hexagram though? Demons, jinns, and that creepy doorway we had to take to get here," I wondered out loud. Not to mention my uneasy feeling that still sent shudders down my spine.

"Maybe they thought this Aladdin was possessed and it was part of some cleansing ritual. We should get the writing translated and come back." She turned to me, looking ready to leave.

"Are we going to leave it like that?" I pointed at the open sarcophagus with the finger bone lying on top. "I'm seriously questioning UCL's archeology course right now. How did you manage to graduate?"

She shot me a poisonous look before helping me fix the skeleton and closing the lid. When we finally left, Lara kept the flashlight and went first into the corridor and up the stairs. Now that we apparently had overcome all the traps, I didn't mind her leading the way through the dark again.

The moment we stepped out into the room with the four exits, I inhaled at length. Even though the air was still somewhat stuffy there, it was the first good breath I took since we'd stepped through the hell gate. Even the headache was gone.

With the prospect in mind to get back above ground, we continued our way through the next passageway. When we reached the golden lamp on the pedestal though, Lara stopped dead in her tracks.

"Lara…" I said in a warning tone.

"We have to be missing something," she repeated more to herself than me, her eyes glued to the lamp once again. "Isn't it strange the way it is presented like—"

"A trap? Come on, we've already talked about this."

"Or it is the centerpiece and the later rooms are only there for Aladdin's tomb." She looked up at me. "What if I'm right? And this is the lamp you're wishing for? Wouldn't you want to know? Don't you want to see your Genie?"

I didn't know what to say to that and, apparently, Lara noticed my indecisiveness. Before I could form a coherent thought, she took the lamp and lifted it off the pedestal. I whirled around in panic, expecting something to shoot out of the walls and impale us. What if we'd overlooked something?

Lara groaned in pain.

Thin spikes jutted out of the pedestal's sides in all directions—one of them had gone through her thigh. Another stuck in her midriff.

"Holy shit," was all I could say, staring at the metal tip sticking out the back of her leg. Of course, the one place we hadn't checked for traps had to have one.

Lara pushed herself off the trap and tumbled backward.

I was reaching for my backpack to snatch the first-aid kit when the clacking in the walls began again. "Oh, God," I moaned.

A ceiling tile fell down and crashed onto the floor behind Lara. And another one. Dust, soil, and chunks of stone followed. The clacking turned into rumbling. The room quaked.

"Run!" She looked at me wide-eyed, stuffed the lamp into a pocket of her coat, and turned on her heels.

We dashed to the broken door, the floor cracking and subsiding behind us. Limping, Lara jumped and dove through the gap in the door and rolled back to her feet. With the rucksack on my back, I could only heave myself over it. For a moment, I was afraid Lara would run ahead, but she came back and pulled me to the other side.

"You seriously need to keep her hands off everything but me," I grunted while she helped me up.

The ceiling of the room we'd entered collapsed. Parts of the mechanism clattered over the floor—gears, rods, spears—and got buried under masses of soil that seeped down and filled the room.

As we waded through the dirt along the walls, bones and skulls came through the ceiling and rolled to our feet. The cemetery above us subsided into the subterranean rooms.

At the exit, several steps were already covered by soil. She grabbed my hand, jumped ahead, and pulled me along with her. As we ran up the stairs, the passage collapsed behind us. Lara floundered once but quickly recovered. Her pants were wet with blood. Even with her injured leg, she was almost faster than me. When we closed in on the light at the end though, she tried to pick up speed and tripped. As I helped her back up, the cave-in caught up with us. Something hard smashed into my shoulder. I fell down.

"Fuck," I cried out, collided with the edges of the steps, and slipped down several of them. A block of stone crashed into the stairs behind me and shattered them.

"Sam!" She tried to come to my help, but a wooden beam came crashing down crossways between us, followed by stone and dirt. The way was blocked. "Sam?" she yelled. "Are you okay? Answer me! Oh, God."

I wanted to answer but the blown up dust made me cough so hard, I could hardly breathe. Unable to move forward or back, I was trapped between rubble in complete darkness. Struggling for air, I waited for the cracking ceiling to collapse onto me. When the first chunks hit me, I thought that was it. I was going to get crushed and die. I didn't cry nor did my life flash before my eyes. I froze in shock.

But nothing happened. The passageway had stopped collapsing and calmed down except for rumbling far below and Lara shouting my name. She was scratching at the rubble, trying to dig me free, when she yelped in surprise.

"What—Help me! My friend, she's trapped," she said, her voice low as if she was turned away from me. "Who are you? Leave me alone!" Lara shouted and called out my name again.

I spat out dirt and had to cough some more before I found my voice again. "Lara?" I croaked, unsure whether she could hear me. "What's happening?"

"Do you have the ring?" a female voice said on the other side of the blockade.

"What?" Lara sounded upset.

"Did you find a ring down there? Do you have it?" the female voice said.

"Help me free my friend." The scratching began again. Lara had gone back to digging me out. It didn't last long. "Take your bloody hands off me!" she yelled.

"Hey!" A male voice.

I rose to my feet and tried to shout out, but my voice was still weak. With stretched out arms, I fumbled around in the dark in the direction the voices came from. I found the wooden beam and hammered at it. It slumped a bit. Rumbling, more rubble fell down. I froze, mentally begging the beam and ceiling not to collapse.

"Give us the ring and we'll help you," the woman said.

"Fine. Here, take it. Now—Get off me! Bastard!"

"Your friend's dead anyway." The male voice again. "Come with us or—"

"I'm not going anywhere!"

There was a struggle. Groaning. A muffled bang. Was that a gunshot? Lara cried out. Everyone was shouting around outside.

"Lara!" I hammered at the blockade in panic again. I had to back off when parts of it fell down onto me. I pressed myself against the debris behind me and waited for it to calm down. As my feet got buried in sliding soil, I shouted for Lara but she didn't answer. The voices outside were gone. Unmoving, I strained my ears for any indication anyone was still there but everything was quiet except for the cracking above me.

They were gone. Lara was gone. The ceiling could collapse any moment and bury me alive and no one was there to get me out.

My heart pounded against my chest. My clammy hands pressed against the walls of my tiny confinement in a desperate attempt to push them away—or simply for halt. I felt dizzy. There wasn't enough air. I was going to suffocate.

"Help," I whimpered in the dark. Tears rolled down my dust-covered cheeks as I sank to my knees.

I clutched Lara's ax that still had hung from my wrist and pressed it to my chest. Something had happened to her and I was trapped, waiting to run out of air or get crushed by stone.

That was such a shitty way to die.

I had to at least try to get out of there even though chances were the ceiling would come down the moment I touched the rubble. I needed some of Lara's luck now, I thought. The things she'd told me about she'd survived on Yamatai defied probability.

I rose back to my feet and felt along the wooden beam, gritting my teeth when splinters drove into my fingers. There was a heap of debris stuck under it. I readied the ax and hacked away at it with all my strength. Stinging pain shot through my battered shoulder with every hit. I mentally sent out prayers to whoever would listen that the passage wouldn't collapse any further. After a while, stone broke and came free from under the beam. Piece after piece, the rubble cleared away and rolled down, piling up around my legs. The beam moved again, giving me a heart attack, but then it stayed in place. It took a while, but daylight eventually fell through a gap into the small space I was trapped in.

"Lara," I shouted. No answer. I tried again, but it was still quiet outside.

Coughing and sweating, I continued to hammer at the debris until the gap looked big enough. I shoved my rucksack through first and then crawled after it. The moment my head emerged on the other side, I took a deep breath of fresh air. I filled my lungs so much, I almost got stuck under the rubble.

Finally free, I struggled to my feet and looked around. No one was there. Lara was gone. There was only the flashlight lying on the ground and a bloodstain on the wall.


End file.
